The July Kamikaze exhibits continue in the same tradition of thirty Kamikaze Exhibits that took place at PØST in September of 2009. Difficult times invite difficult gestures. By design, these exhibits remain close to art and distant from the other stuff.

The paintings of Max Presneill reflect upon Hermetic moments within reconstructed histories and mythologized experiences and reconfigured relationships between fact and fiction. These forged connections that play between remembering, invention and the act of painting allow for fluid identities and the heightened poignancy of self-aware entropy, of the passage of one’s own time and essential singularity in the world. The paintings touch upon aspects of memory and transience that allude to situations, both specific and general, factual and imagined, in a form of visual existentialism. Isolated and de-contextualized, the source materials float in a sea of uncertainty, like our own reflection in a mirror, somewhat familiar but not quite us, what is seen differing from what is felt.

Anarchy comes from the Greek and means “without ruler”. How this relatively neutral idea came to indicate the chaos and violence associated with it today is a study in history, psychology, and the exercise of human power. This exhibition seeks to explore another side of anarchy: the possibilities inherent in the organic organization of autonomous individuals acting freely and independently.

The first to identify his philosophy as anarchism was the Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in the 1840’s. Proudhon’s conception of a society without a ruler, anarchy, was nearly the complete opposite of the bedlam now associated with the word; he conceived of anarchy as a harmonious and equitable society based on mutual aid, shared resources, self-determination, and true equality. These ideas played out in limited ways through the work and writings of anarchists including Spanish revolutionaries in the early 1900’s and Green activists in the 21st century.

This exhibition seeks an organizational framework based on anarchist principles including collaboration, independence, and mutuality. Artists and curator aim to co-organize every aspect of the exhibition, from inviting artists to planning and implementing the show and reception. In anarchist tradition, our small group is part of the larger cluster of autonomous artists, curators,and others, each offered the responsibility of shared space, PØST, by HK Zamani for the duration of their exhibition. Our exhibition is an experiment, albeit a relatively small and short one, in anarchist community. The results will depend on the ideas, actions, and choices of all involved. We invite you to the reception to look, discuss, participate, and offer your thoughts and presence.

Gallery hours and reception are from 7-9 PM. For further information please contact HK Zamani at 213-488-1280 or Annie Buckley at anniebuckley@sbcglobal.net.

(Gallery hours and receptions are 7-9 PM. For further information please contact HK Zamani at 213.488.1280 / new@post-la.com or Young Chung at 213.703.9077 / lovelessinla@gmail.com)

“Commonwealth”Robert Summers, PhD

LA-based artist Young Chung selects artworks by 30 artists from Commonwealth Avenue. For over a decade, Chung has been gathering together works, which resonate with the personal, poetic, and political, through exchanges, purchases, and gifts. These artworks mark—perhaps, a (in)visible-spatio-temporal-psychic-stigmata—Chung’s personal relations, investments, and support for and with these artists and their works.

The title of this exhibition comes from both the name of the street Chung lives on, as well as the idea of “being(-)with” that resonates with his collection, and his part of a “community,” one could say a “commonwealth,” which is part and parcel to his desirous idea to create a(nother) type of commonwealth for various subjects and visualities. Hence, this exhibition aims to highlight particular artists, inclusions (and its attendant exclusions), reciprocity, and the intertwinement of people, places, and things. Furthermore, this exhibition asks us to critically think about what is meant by collecting, community, and commonwealth; indeed, how are such (contested) terms constru(ct)ed—especially in this era of the “politics of aesthetics,” to borrow from Jacques Rancière?

A series of interlocking ideas should be raised, which moves around and beyond this exhibition. These ideas are of critical importance, and have been re-thought for generations: what may we say of “commonwealth”? One thing may be said, crudely stated: the commonwealth is of, and for, “the people”—a “collective group,” a “community” imbricated in (the) politics (of aesthetics). What also may be said of the commonwealth? But, something else can be asked before the said: what precedes and exceeds the commonwealth—which is also to ask what is “wrong” with the common, community, consensus, as Rancière has asked? Let us go further: what undermines—even as it underwrites—the common(wealth)? The answer is rather simple: those of no (ac)count, which are those bodies in the commonwealth who (supposedly) have no voice—or are not heard—in the formation of the commonwealth, which they nevertheless “belong” to—precariously so. Indeed, every commonwealth is based upon a series of exclusions, which is true for everything, which is also to say there is incommensurability in commensurable. This point is raised here in order not to show the smoke and mirrors of consensus—but rather to surface Dissensus—which is tethered to (the) politics (of aesthetics).

Now, it is important to note that the artworks—these aesthetic objects—on display are those of “no (ac)count” within the staging and scripting of modernist art history (itself a highly political ideology—no matter how “natural” or “objective” it presents itself); hence, the artworks disrupt the narrative (a poor man’s teleology) of art history through their dissensus, their “redistribution of the sensible.” These artworks, as well as the exhibition, are, let there be no doubt, political in that they actively demand a recount in order to be taken into account: their voice will be heard, the intimate and attested relations (in-)between art and politics will be made visible—no matter how temporary. In this way, Chung has generously and genuinely put forward a series of various visualities that highlight the connection(s) between art and politics, the common and the uncommon (always inside the former). So, from one angle, it appears that what is surfaced here, that which ties the exhibition together, is what and how is art and politics (inter)related, and how are these related to the (un-)common of the commonwealth, so how to think through the commonwealth, otherwise? The answers to these questions may be unsettling, and they may irritate many, but they must be asked and critically thought through, which is an immediate and absolute engagement in (the) politics (of aesthetics) today.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

This project has two venues: artworks installed for 2 hours at PØST, and digital images displayed in perpetuity at www.infectedeye.com/post.Infected Eye, launched in 2004, is a collection of artists' websites built into a single user interface and branching from a central page. This "hub" contains links to the websites listed in random order, along with announcements added by the artists. All image and text content is managed by the artists, without administrative oversight. The websites were traded for artworks. The selection of artists on Infected Eye is the result of serendipity, desire, and utility.Infected Eye @ PØST brings this content back into real space for a brief moment, and explores the slippery relationships that exist between the selected artworks.